News Update for Wednesday, October 11

The leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, made a perplexing speech last night. First, he appeared to declare independence, to then immediately suspend that decision in order to start a dialogue with the government in Madrid. Many supporters of Catalan independence were left in a state of total confusion. The Spanish prime minister refuses any dialogue with the separatists unless they abandon plans for secession.

California and Puerto Rico

The wildfires in Northern California have not yet been totally contained, but winds are much weaker. The death toll now stands at 17, but is expected to rise.

And in Puerto Rico, three weeks after Hurricane Maria, only 16 percent of Puerto Rico has electricity. Forty percent is without running water. The lack of these basic necessities is leaving the sick and elderly in a life-threatening condition.

Spies Watching Spies Watching Spies

Israeli intelligence caught Russian hackers who were using the popular Kaspersky antivirus software as a portal to spy on U.S. secrets. Russian spies achieved their global reach using the acclaimed software, used by 400 million people worldwide. The Israeli officials alerted the United States, and the government has ordered Kaspersky software to be removed from all official computers. Like most security software, the Kaspersky antivirus program requires access to everything stored on a computer, sending back a report to Kaspersky of any malware it encounters. This provided a perfect tool for Russian intelligence to survey the contents of computers and save whatever they found of interest.

Messi Saves Argentina

Messi scored three goals in Quito to guarantee a place for Argentina in next year’s World Cup. Peru will dispute the last spot in a playoff with New Zealand. The United States only needed a tie with last-placed Trinidad and Tobago, but lost by 2 X 1 and are out of the competition for the first time since 1990.